This article provides an introduction to The Health Practitioners Competency Assurance Act (HPCAA) which took effect on 18 September 2004. The Act was introduced to provide consistent accountability across health professions and make it easier for the New Zealand public to understand what health service each registered professional provides. To…

This paper aims to examine current nationwide youth fitness test programs, address problems embedded in the programs, and possible solutions. The current Fitnessgram, President's Challenge, and YMCA youth fitness test programs were selected to represent nationwide youth fitness test programs. Sponsors of the nationwide youth fitness test programs…

In the complex environment of 21st-century public education, a consensus has emerged among policymakers, researchers, and educational practitioners that the single most important factor contributing to student learning is the quality of teaching. Calls for evidence of a more effective teacher workforce from policymakers, federal agencies, state…

In this article, the authors aim to present and discuss competing accountability approaches, or models, designed to systematically indicate how a school's students are performing academically. Within the framework of the current federally mandated accountability legislation, increased interest in models measuring school performance has caused…

Accountability in Chicago in the 1990s derived from progressive reform legislation adopted in 1988 and 1995. The Illinois General Assembly in 1988 passed the Chicago School Reform Act (P.A. 85-1418), which included a set of goals, a redistribution of the school district's resources, and a decentralization of decisionmaking to the school level. The…

This paper is the second of two (see pt. 1) that describe a six-part conceptual framework for designing and evaluating digital libraries for mathematics education in K-12 settings: information literacy, information organization, integrated learning, adoption of new educational standards, integration of pertinent changes in educational policy…

In May 2000, a class action lawsuit on behalf of California's public school students, Williams v. State of California, was filed in state court in an effort to make the state address inequities in its public schools. The central issue of the case was students' access to the "bare essentials" of public education: qualified teachers,…

The No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) assumes that state-mandated tests provide useful information to school administrators and teachers. However, interviews with administrators and teachers suggest that Minnesota's tests, which are representative of the current generation of state-mandated tests, fail to provide useful information to administrators…

Although criticized by many, the Boston Public (BP) television show raises important issues about the realities of high school life. At a time when educational policy makers see a need to improve student test scores, this show suggests that other issues are more important in the lives of modern high school students, teachers, and administrators.…

Education researchers and classroom teachers have argued that the constant pressure to measure and rank students makes it difficult to shape assessment as an episode of learning. Yet we know little about how learning moves in and through assessment of any kind. Building on two national multisited studies, the research reported here uses…

Throughout this era of greater educational accountability, assessment researchers have argued that large-scale comparative assessment data can enhance learning within and across systems of education and can foster reforms based on the practices of high achieving jurisdictions. Other researchers are less optimistic, warning that educational reform…

Stakeholder surveys conducted as part of the development of an accountability and assessment system for five charter schools in Miami-Dade County and Broward County, Florida, revealed high positive response regarding high expectations, school climate, basic skills instruction, and monitoring student progress. The lowest overall rating revealed…

The article begins by setting out a confluence of events that initiated a proposal to attract students from Taiwan to a new EdD program in Australia, and then explores the tensions and congruities that ensue from this scenario. The main tensions and congruities revolved around issues of standards, quality, English-language levels, profit motives,…

This article discusses the value and feasibility of carrying out evaluation research on teacher development and uses as points of reference the author's experiences in two countries, Sri Lanka and Mexico. In Sri Lanka, an evaluation study was designed to understand the effectiveness and costs of teacher development at the elementary level linking…

Analyzes the impact of recent policy developments in the USA associated with school accountability according to the best interests of the student. With the mandated implementation of the US federal law entitled the No Child Left Behind Act approaching, minimal attention has been afforded to the complex ethical dimensions associated with policies…